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Monday, 11 January 2010

I wish I could say that I’ve been a photography enthusiast all my life, but I haven’t. I have however always been passionate about art. I love intense colours, interesting shapes, smooth textures, light, and how objects and people interact with each other. I like to touch and smell things to really appreciate them, we are surrounded by beautiful objects, both natural and man made and I wish everyone stopped to appreciate them more.

Although I don’t feel qualifications are particularly important in this field as to an extent, you either have it or you don’t, I do feel that it was very worthwhile for me. It gave me a chance to experiment while being able to learn with and from my peers. I studied art and design and art history A-levels, here I developed my love for painting further. I also got to study great works of art and buildings which helped my understanding of composition and light. I initially planned to study painting at degree level so took an Art Foundation which was mandatory to do this. It was here that I first picked up an SLR camera, I loved it. I like to work fast and so to an extent painting slowed me down so I loved the new freedom I had to create what I wanted at a much faster pace. I was lucky enough to have a supportive and enthusiastic teacher who saw my potential and encouraged me to pursue this. I decided to do a photography degree at the internationally renowned Falmouth College of Arts (now University College Falmouth). Here I was encouraged to explore the concepts behind the images more to create more depth. I quickly realised that my main interest was in photographing people and the human form and so that is what I then concentrated on.

When I first finished my degree I was unsure if I wanted to pursue a career in photography, I was worried that it could take away the enjoyment of it so I took time to reflect. I then took a few portrait jobs, the joy that I brought to these people with what I not only found quite natural but enjoyed also was immense and I knew that I should continue. I then photographed a wedding for a friend of my brother and I loved it. Even with my love for photographing people I had not considered photographing weddings before this, I think this is because I had a misconception as to what wedding photography was, I thought of the stale formal photographs of our past which still have their place for some people but is not for me. I entered a new world of wedding photography as art and documentry and started to see the wonderful things people were creating with their wedding photography for their clients and I found this really exciting and decided that this was definitely for me. I now never fail to be excited by the images I am producing at weddings and revel in my awesome client’s enthusiasm for them.